

It was named after the river Chara (affluent of Lena) which is near its locality. Charoite has been ’explored’ two times. First in 1948, during the construction of a railway tunnel, but this time it was determined as cummingtonite slate, next time in the secound half of the seventies (1978) when it got the name charoite. In hungarian langue it is correctly ’csaroit’, but it is mentioned in many wrong translated names like ’charoit’ or ’karoit’. The charoite was under the effect of a rare metasomatism. It is a potassium feldspar, consisting of more minerals beside the purple charoite e.g. orange tinaksite, greenish gray microcline, black aegirine and augite, white feldspar etc. Ornaments and jewels are made of it. Its only one locality is in Russia, Sakha Republic (Yakutia) the mine named ’Lilac Stone’ at Murunskii Massif.